The Will
by HalberdGenesis
Summary: A Post-Third Impact one shot, dedicated to the ones who make it to tomorrow. Kind of a follow-up to Kimochi Warui.


In the distance, Lilith stares lovingly into the apartment with pristine, lifeless eyes. Her skin has begun to tear away from her face in small flecks. Soon she will begin to rot.

Asuka's arms are wrapped around me. I can feel the soft rise and fall of her chest, the beating of her heart, and they are indistinguishable from my own. Her warmth permeates me. Gently, she opens her eyes, and smiles warmly when she sees me.

"Hello, Shinji."

Hearing my name on her tongue sets off fireworks in my head.

"Good morning, Asuka."

She closes her eyes again, and pulls me against her chest. Our hearts beat in an alternating pattern.

On the shore, the waves have subsided. Everything is still. A child of Adam with short blue hair hovers over the sea's glassy red surface, mere planck lengths from what remains of Lilith's children, but she might as well be thousands of lightyears away.

Bubbles begin to form on the surface. The takes a sharp breath, filled suddenly with hope. "Please," she whispers. A patch of LCL becomes solid, gelatinous. It moves frantically, changing shape at random.

"Please".

The blob begins to expand before it takes on a deep red hue. It trembles, contracts, and stretches into a vaguely human silhouette.

The shape began to realize it was alone. A thin red film had separated it from the herd, mass, unit. The words sounded wrong. What was that thing it was no longer a part of?

The shape had a beginning and end now. How strange. How small. It could stretch and contract. It could feel something move against its edges. Thousands of something. The shape could change. It shifted into a form it remembered, something long, with a top and bottom, lungs and a mouth. A mouth that could feel something lingering, a gentle brush, a push. A kiss. Filled suddenly with a desperation, a burning hunger, she breached the surface. Reached out towards the moon and willed her skin to become solid again. She gasped for breath. Oh god, she thought, I remember. The air filled her lungs, her brain, her blood, her soul, and it was over.

She was real.

Misato Katsuragi pressed her face against the sand to feel its coarseness against her cheek. She looked at her hands, hyperventilating, and wiggled her fingers, feeling the tendons pull against the bones. She bit her hand until it bled. She screamed. She screamed until her throat was raw, until her legs gave out beneath her and she crumpled to the ground, her vision cracking into indistinct blobs of color.

It didn't take long before she heard muffled impacts against the sand. Two shapes appeared above her. She blinked. These things were shaped like her. They had a definite form, a beginning and an end, not like the red sea she had just emerged from. They were different from her, but only just. One of them knelt down beside her, bringing part of its form close to her face. "Misato?" it said. "Are you okay?"

That thing...was it part of her? Did it want to become part of her? Suddenly stricken with terror, she wrapped her hands around its throat and squeezed with all of her might. Did it want to take her back? Did it want to make her nothing again? The second thing, which was separate from the first, which was separate from her, tried to pull its companion away. Misato could feel something moving against her hand. A pulse. She looked back at the thing's face. It was Shinji. She relinquished her grip, and gasped for air. She sat straight up, filling her lungs to the brim with each breath, drinking the air. Tears stung the corners of her eyes as she felt her heart begin to beat. She looked to her right, vague disbelief coloring her expression. Shinji was coughing, and Asuka was holding his wrist, breathing slowly, trying to guide him.

"Asuka." It took a moment for her to realize she said it. The fog began to clear from her head.

Her kids were alive.

Misato scrambled up and pulled Shinji and Asuka into an almost violent embrace. "You're okay", she heard herself mutter. "You're okay. You're okay. You're okay".

Tears in her eyes, she pulled back. Shinji smiled at her sheepishly.

"Are you?" he asked. Misato almost laughed. "I'm fine. I'm...I can't believe you two made it back."

"Neither can we," Asuka said. She looked out over the Red Sea. "But...I just couldn't imagine living like that."

The two children sat down next to Misato, and watched the waves gently licking the shore. Night had fallen, and they could see the Milky Way spilling out across the sky. Lillith's corpse lay half-submerged in LCL, her snow-white skin reflecting the brilliant orange of the sea. And on the horizon, though none of them saw, the young woman the humans had named Rei watched the three.

Beneath her, the ocean began to churn and bubble. The waves grew restless, turned dark red and began crashing against the body of Lillith. Rei heard voices, recognized faces. The smallest hint of a smile began to tug at her lips.

Instrumentality had been doomed from the start. The fact that those three, of all people, were alive, physical, and seperate proved what she had known all along. The only thing stronger than humanity's fear of death was its will to live.


End file.
